I’m about to make the leap from a PC to a Mac, so I’m cleaning up all the stuff that’s accumulated on my PC over the years. I stumbled across some fun pictures I thought you might enjoy. Some of my early books had strong romantic threads running through them, so I was active in the Romance Writers of America organization, where I made many wonderful writing friends whom I still cherish today.

The picture on the left was taken at the RWA conference the night I won the RITA award for my first novel, Private Relations (how come we don’t appreciate how young we look when we are young??), and here I am on my way to the stage to receive the award. Note the shocked look on my face. I was so shocked, in fact, that I forgot to put on my shoes, which I’d taken off to get comfy as I watched the awards ceremony!

I don’t remember if this party was before or after the ceremony, but I’m chatting here with Nora Roberts, who had given me a blurb for Private Relations. There’s no one more generous when it comes to helping other writers than Nora.

Fast forward a year or so to a Romantic Times convention (the wildest conventions ever!). Do you like my purple hair? This was taken at a costume party and I think I’m talking with Kat Martin, though it might be Kathleen Eagle. Hard to tell in this picture. Maybe Kat or Kathleen will stop by to let me know!

I believe the next couple of pix were from the same convention, though those events do tend to run together. I love this picture of me with my good friend, the late regency writer, Lydia Lee. I miss her so much!

And here I am with my longtime friend, Mary Kirk, at a convention booksigning. We both look thrilled with our sales, don’t we? I’m excited that Mary’s making a comeback: her new website will be up soon and she’s made her backlist available via Kindle. If you’re a romance reader, you’re in luck!

Kathryn Lynn Davis, who wrote the mega bestseller Too Deep for Tears (and who needs to get back to writing!) and I shared one thing in common besides a love of books: we were both “health challenged”. So here we are at an RT convention with our little pill cases, acting like the drama queens we were/are.

I believe the next shot was taken at another RWA conference. That’s me with Karen Solem, who was my editor at HarperCollins at the time and who is now an agent, and Mary Alice Monroe, whom I bet you all know. Mary Alice and I go waaaaay back, both of us cutting our teeth on romance before moving into women’s fiction. (What’s with the big hair??)

And finally, a couple of bonus shots from early shared booksignings, the first with author Patricia McLinn, who recently started A Writer’s Work to make the backlist books of so many romance writers available as ebooks, and the second with Kathleen Gilles Seidel, who still turns out a masterpiece every few years.

I hope you enjoyed this stroll through my poor old computer before I shut her down. When I look back at the pictures from the old days, I see myself so full of hope and excitement over my budding career, never knowing the very long and challenging road I had ahead of me. What’s the opposite of “overnight success”? Still, I love where I’ve landed and treasure every minute–and every friend–I’ve made along the way.